Campus Calendar

ACES Scholarly Event: The Human Cost to India's Race for Development

While India is perceived as an emerging market, the stories of the plundering of natural resources and the systematic annihilation of the indigenous peoples go unheard. In this race to make India a superpower, and a growing media industry that champions this idea, social inequality has reached its zenith, and easily gets pushed aside. What, then, is the future of the people who grow food with their hands; who have long been guarding forests and rivers--even before climate change could touch them? Why does the media shy away from reporting about the majority of its populace, even while they silently die from landmines and malaria alike? Reporting on the 'hidden civil war in India', Priyanka Borpujari, an independent journalist based in Mumbai, will speak about the dark territories of mineral-rich India, which are rife with violence and disease, which are only silenced.

Priyanka Borpujari is an independent journalist based in Mumbai, India. Her work documenting human rights abuses takes her to different corners of the country. While she has been writing for various publications in India, she has also been reporting through her blog posts about India’s mad race for development and the adverse effects it has had on the indigenous populace. In 2011, she was awarded the 'Young Independent Journalist Fellowship’ by the New York-based SINGH Foundation. Most recently, she was selected as the 2012 International Women’s Media Foundation Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow and is currently based at MIT. Along with Adharshila Learning Centre - a unique school in western India for indigenous children and based on the principle of 'pedagogy of the oppressed' - she has been bringing out a magazine to amplify the indigenous voices. Her blog is www.priyanka-borpujari.blogspot.com and details about the IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship can be found here: http://iwmf.org/pioneering-change/elizabeth-neuffer-fellowship/press-release-061312.aspx.